


I'll Take It By Your Side

by gingertintedglasses



Series: Running Up That Hill [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Artist Steve, Caretaker Fatigue, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Mentions of Panic Attacks, Protective Steve, War Veteran Steve, civilian bucky, grateful steve, just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingertintedglasses/pseuds/gingertintedglasses
Summary: Prompt: War Vet Steve and Cillvian Bucky Prompt: After the fall and trip to the ER, Steve realizes again how much he loves Bucky. He saw that moment of fear and doubt before Buck put up his mask of bravery. So Steve decided to tell Buck just how much he appreciates his boyfriend.





	I'll Take It By Your Side

Steve would have thought he was imagining it, if he hadn’t seen Bucky wipe an eye.  (He knew Bucky was struggling too, in his own way).  If Bucky hadn’t given voice to his worries and his plan to seek out a therapist. But he had.  Bucky was scared and worried and doing his best to shore them both up and Steve appreciated it more than he could say and it _wasn’t fair_.

Dr. Mahmoud had been right; he was sore.  So sore that he couldn’t sleep.  Bucky’d tried to stay awake with him at first (though he didn’t _say_ that was what he was doing) but Bucky eventually drifted off against his will.  

Steve watched him sleep for a while, movie still playing on low from Bucky’s laptop.   _Striking_.  That’s the word Steve remembers his mother using when they first met.  She’d said it to Winnie.   _He has suck striking features_ – sharp angles and bright eyes and dark, dark hair.  And, Steve was pretty sure, more worry lines around his eyes, his mouth, than he’d had before.  Steve wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, his guilt, or his injury that put them there, but they were there all the same.  

He’d always known he’d been lucky to have Bucky in his life. But now.  He wasn’t sure he’d have done so well, without Bucky’s support and encouragement.  His keeping Steve’s feet on the ground, figuratively and literally, during Steve’s recuperation.

Steve had his sketchpad in hand before he could really think.  He’d seen that picture somewhere online.  The little boy asleep and the teddy bear guarding him from the monster.  Steve drew himself asleep, bandaged and broken but healing.  He drew Bucky standing in front of Steve’s prone form, sleep- and worry- worn and brandishing his fists and a menacing expression.  He drew a swirl of _something_ that didn’t quite have shape except out of the corner of his eye.  Something slick and slithering, rearing a shape that could have been a head and staying back, staying away.  Bucky keeping it at bay.  

He drew himself, bandaged and broken but healing, kissing the forehead of a sleeping Bucky, one hand gentle on his back, the other with a stiletto pressed up against the ribs of an insidious shape, a jumble of words and worries that formed itself into a looming shadow of a man.  

He wrote a note at the bottom, sleep (finally, finally) making his print into something resembling cursive: _I’ve got your back, too, love_ and laid it on the bedside table beside Bucky.


End file.
